A young man who went missing in Lake Washington during Seafair festivities has still not been found in the days following, officials confirmed Monday.
Mercer Island police said they looked for the 19-year-old Friday night and again Saturday, but had to call off the search due to Seafair-related restrictions.
“On July 31st at about 10:40 in the evening, we got reports that someone might be missing from a vessel,” Jeff Magnan, acting chief of the Mercer Island Police Department, said.
Magnan told KIRO 7 a group of people had been boating around the lake for hours Friday when a 19-year-old went overboard somewhere between the log boom and the I-90 bridge.
“The time period and even the location is pretty vague,” he said. “We are looking at a pretty big swath of lake.”
Investigators said the other people on the boat are fully cooperating. Multiple agencies joined in on the search, including the Coast Guard. Crews used drones, infrared cameras and thermal cameras to try and find the missing person.
“We concluded the search last night at around 12:30 in the morning,” Magnan said. “We continued to send boats out today to see if we could locate anything, and so far, we have had negative results.”
Magnan said the search was called off again Saturday due to Federal Aviation Administration restrictions related to Seafair.
“We are hoping he made it to another boat or made it to the shore and everything is going to be fine,” he said. “But we have not heard anything from him or his family that he has been located.”
Investigators reported multiple boat-related incidents per day during Seafair and urged caution, especially when boating at night.
“Being prepared for the unlikely event is probably what we want to stress to the boaters who are out there,” Magnan said.
Magnan said the next step is to obtain cell phone records to trace the exact path the boat took when they resume their search.
On Monday morning, the Mercer Island Police Department released the following update:
“The missing 19-year-old male who is believed to have fallen or entered the water from a recreational vessel on Lake Washington on July 31 has not made contact with family or friends.
Investigators continue to actively investigate the incident and are working to obtain and analyze available cellular phone location data in an effort to further narrow the search area. Once that information has been reviewed, search and recovery operations will resume with resources focused on the most likely location."
Anyone with information that may help is asked to contact the Mercer Island Police Department here.
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